Times Past

In 1916, four men were assigned to fly reconnaissance with General John "Blackjack" Pershing's punitive expeditionary forces in Mexico to help chase Pancho Villa.
Ira Rader, John B. Brooks, Ralph Royce and Arthur Reed Christie were among America's earliest military aviators and were frequent visitors to Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.

"It says here Aunt Susie died," said George Smalley, reading a letter from home at the family dinner table. "Oh, who shot her?" asked his daughter Yndia. It seemed like everyone died that way in Globe in those days.

During the summer of 1933, a scientific reconnaissance project, "Rainbow Bridge/Monument Valley Expedition" (RBMVE) began in the remote reaches of northeastern Arizona. The idea was conceived by Ansel Franklin Hall of the National Park Service, following a suggestion by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes.

The rain began as a gentle shower. An hour later, six people were drowned and the damages amounted to half-a-million dollars. They called it the Globe flood, but the official government name was the Pinal Creek Flood, since it was the creek that did the flooding, not the town.

Irrigation helped make Phoenix an attractive place to live for many of the pioneers who were heading west to California in the 1800s. Mrs. Columbus Gray started toward California with her husband in 1868 in a wagon train from Arkansas.

Early U.S. Forest Service (USFS) scientists assigned to study the northern Arizona forests realized the importance of climate when it comes to the life of trees. One of the first tasks researchers undertook was to establish weather-recording equipment at the nation's first USFS forest research site at Fort Valley, near Flagstaff.

The Springerville "Madonna of the Trail" looms 18 feet high across from the Post Office on Main Street, also known as Highway 60. She has 11 identical sisters, each in a different state: Bethesda, Md.; Beallsville, Pa.; Springfield, Ohio; Wheeling, W.Va.; Vandalia, Ill.; Richmond, Ind.; Lexington, Miss.; Council Grove, Kan.; Lamar, Colo.; Albuquerque, N.M. and Upland, Calif.

John Clum figured that every tombstone needed an epitaph. In 1880, he founded Tombstone, Arizona's, most famous newspaper, The Epitaph. He prided himself on providing his readers the opportunity to read their epitaph every day before breakfast.

Should he stay or should he go? In 1916, four men were assigned to fly reconnaissance with General John "Blackjack" Pershing's punitive expeditionary forces in Mexico to help chase Pancho Villa.
Ira Rader, John B. Brooks, Ralph Royce and Arthur Reed Christie were among America's earliest military aviators and were frequent visitors to Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.November 19, 2018 , 4:36 pm